Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Man who rammed truck into New Orleans crowd apparently acted alone, authorities say

By Justin Jouvenal, Lauren Weber and Maria Sacchetti Washington Post

The Texas man who drove a pickup truck into a New Orleans crowd on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people, likely acted alone and had pledged his support to the Islamic State militant group, the FBI said Thursday.

Investigators saw Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, an Army veteran, on surveillance video recorded before the attack placing coolers containing improvised explosive devices near the scene of the massacre that also injured at least 35, Christoper Raia, FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, said at a news conference.

Officials have found no definitive link between the New Orleans attack and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday that killed one person, Raia said. Officials also said there was no longer a threat to the public in New Orleans, where the Sugar Bowl was rescheduled after the attack for Thursday afternoon, instead of Wednesday.

The FBI initially said Wednesday that they thought Jabbar may have had accomplices, but after conducting interviews, examining his phone records and conducting other parts of the investigation, the bureau determined he likely acted alone.

“This was an act of terrorism,” Raia said. “It was premeditated and an evil act.”

Officials offered fresh details about the attack, which unfolded on the popular Bourbon Street corridor around 3:15 a.m. on Jan. 1. Jabbar rammed New Year’s revelers with his truck before opening fire with a gun and being killed during a shootout with authorities.

Law enforcement officials found a flag representing the militant group the Islamic State, or ISIS, attached to the hitch of the truck.

Raia said Jabbar rented the Ford F-150 truck he used in the attack in Houston on Dec. 30, before driving it to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. During the journey, Jabbar recorded five videos and posted them to Facebook. Jabbar said in the videos that he joined the Islamic State before the summer and offered a will and testament, Raia said.

“In the first video, Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers,’ ” Raia said.

Raia did not address whether Jabbar had contact with the Islamic State. He said officials were investigating why Jabbar chose to carry out the attack in New Orleans, but said he likely targeted Bourbon Street because of the large crowds.

“That’s the stuff in the coming days as far as that path to radicalization that we’re really going to be digging into and making a priority,” Raia said.

Authorities have searched a home on Mandeville Street in New Orleans in connection with the attack.

Joshua Jackson, the top ATF agent for the New Orleans area, said at the news conference Thursday that authorities believe the home caught on fire after Jabbar was killed and that investigators were trying to determine the cause.

Authorities said they have recovered three phones and two computers associated with Jabbar.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) said at the news conference that more than 1,000 law enforcement officers have been involved in the investigation. Bourbon Street reopened Thursday afternoon, and heightened security was planned for the Sugar Bowl.

Chris Pousson, who attended middle school and high school with Jabbar, said in an interview that the attack has stunned people in Jabbar’s hometown of Beaumont, Texas, where Pousson still lives. Pousson said Jabbar was a good student, friendly and well-liked.

“He was a really quiet person,” Pousson said. “He just kind of kept to himself. He was really reserved. He wasn’t outgoing and wasn’t disruptive in class. He wasn’t a troublemaker.”

Pousson said he and Jabbar graduated from high school in 2001. Jabbar joined the Army, while Pousson enlisted in the Air Force. They lost contact for a while but later became friends on Facebook. He said the last time he spoke with Jabbar was around 2018 and that Jabbar had grown more outwardly religious.

“Every post or every conversation we had would eventually gravitate toward Allah,” Pousson said. “It was nothing negative or violent, but it just seemed like that was what he was thinking about and passionate about.”

Grant Savoy, a high school classmate of Jabbar’s at what was then Central High School in Beaumont said he also was surprised to hear about Jabbar’s connection to the deadly event. He described Jabbar as “a quiet guy.”

“He just was a regular dude,” Savoy said.

Jabbar had worked in a staff-level role since being hired in 2021 for consulting firm Deloitte, said spokesperson Jonathan Gandal.

“Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation,” Gandal said.

Jabbar left the Army in July 2020 as a staff sergeant, the Army said, having served eight years active duty and five years in the Reserve. His two military jobs, which were not combat-related, did not indicate any specialized weapon or explosive experience. He also served in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2010.

A man named Shamsuddin or Shamuddin Bahar Jabbar who appears to be the same man who carried out the New Orleans attack wrote in court records that he moved to Georgia after driving while intoxicated on the Fort Bragg Military Reservation in North Carolina in late 2014. He later pleaded guilty to a petty misdemeanor and was sentenced to 12 months’ probation. As a condition of his release, he was ordered to avoid incurring credit card charges or opening new lines of credit without the government’s permission.

In recent years, Jabbar had presented himself online as a capable real estate sales agent and businessman, after earning a degree from Georgia State.

His divorce records indicate that his business ventures were struggling, his marriage was in turmoil and he was responsible for most of the household’s bills. Despite a job at Deloitte paying about $120,000 a year, he said he was struggling to pay his mortgage and carrying thousands of dollars in credit card debt.

He filed for divorce twice against Shaneen Jabbar in 2020 and, after dropping the case, again in 2021.

In a January 2022 email to one of his then-wife’s divorce lawyers, Jabbar asked to quickly finalize the case and sell the family’s four-bedroom home in Fresno, Texas.

“Time is of the essence,” he wrote, adding that he could not afford the house payment. “It is past due in excess of $27,000 and in danger of foreclosure if we delay settling the divorce.”

He said he had “misunderstood the terms of a loan modification” he had applied for and had “exhausted all means of bringing the loan current.”

He said he had told his then-wife months earlier that they had “no alternative but to sell the house or allow it to go into foreclosure.”

He also asked that Shaneen Jabbar turn over any interests in Blue Meadow Properties LLC, a business he said was formed before their marriage, and others created afterward, Jabbar Real Estate Holdings LLC, and BDQ L3C. He said Blue Meadow Properties LLC had loss of $28,019.54 the prior year, and was worth about $140,000. The other two businesses had not launched and were worth nothing.